A 39-year-old woman has told a jury how she wanted to die after being raped by the principal of a Worcestershire children's home.

She alleged that Brian Gillam pushed her into a bathroom at The Uplands, grabbed her around the throat and then forced her to have sex.

The attack happened when she was 14 or 15 after other residents of the home in Green Hill, Blackwell, near Bromsgrove, had gone swimming, she said.

"I just felt like dying, ending it all," she told Worcester Crown Court. "But I didn't have the means to do that. I couldn't tell anyone. There was no one to tell."

The witness kept the attack a secret until she was interviewed by police last year, the jury heard.

Gillam, aged 62, denies five counts of rape, seven of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child at the home between 1974 and 1983. It is alleged by prosecutor Rachel Brand QC that he molested girls under his care for his own sexual gratification.

The woman, who lives in London, went into care at 13 after jumping off a balcony following assaults by her stepfather.

At first she viewed The Uplands as "my salvation". She felt safe, learned to read and became interested in books.

She said Gillam was "a very touchy individual" who liked putting his hand up the jumper of one girl while she sat on his lap watching TV. "It was very, very obvious, it became a bit of a joke," she said.

But one day as she was reading alone with the home deserted, Gillam took her to a bathroom. He turned nasty and she expected the worst, based on her previous experiences of sexual assault.

The witness wept as she recalled how Gillam pressed her windpipe and molested her. "I tried to plead and beg. It was just like a nightmare," she said.

After the attack, she began running away from the home and later went into a religious institution for a number of years.

The trial continues.